Tweaked by Patrick Moore A Crystal Memoir

“There are moments when I suddenly realize that I’m a nice boy from Iowa who is entirely comfortable sitting in a room of freaks.”

So begins Patrick Moore’s unforgettable account of life as a crystal meth addict—a “tweaker.” Like a wild ride down Alice’s rabbit hole with a guide who is darkly funny and heartbreakingly honest, Tweaked chronicles a twenty-year trip that stretches from Moore’s lonely childhood in Iowa with his grandmother, Zelma—an alcoholic artist who, when loaded, turns frozen food into crafts projects —to the day he sits, naked, in a Los Angeles rental, hallucinating about psycho-robbers while talking to a possum he’s sure is God. Along the way, there are acid trips at the V.F.W., Dexetrim study halls with his Bad Girl Posse in the seventies, teeth-grinding nights of dancing and anonymous sex in New York City’s hottest eighties clubs, taking pictures of Andy Warhol, losing friends and lovers, and navigating a Byzantine underworld of cookers, users, club kids, dealers, and colorful characters as intense as the drug itself. There is Lee, the glamorous, outré bad boy with a devastating wit and a taste for danger; Tony, the tweaker who likes to remove his eyebrows; Ding-Dong, the Depends-wearing, nearly blind housemate; Hisako, the artist and squatter with an impenetrable Japanese accent and a fondness for hot plate cooking; “Mother” Judy, the tough, butch rehab counselor who takes no prisoners, and countless others on the road from crystal meth hell to eventual sobriety.

Candid, gripping, and ultimately triumphant, Tweaked is that rarest of memoirs—a tale so vivid and personal in the telling it feels like fiction, but every word is true.

Stuart Woods is the author of thirty-three novels. He lives in Key West, on Mt. Desert Island in Maine, and in New York City. Readers may learn more about him and his work, read an interview, and correspond with him on his Web site at www.stuartwoods.com.

Unrated Critic Reviews for Tweaked

Windy City Media

In the case of writer Patrick Moore ( 'Beyond Shame' ) , however, 'crystal completed, with amazing efficiency, a trajectory that had begun with alcohol, moved through psychedelics, and escalated into a whirlwind of pills and cocaine.'
However, calling Tweaked ( Kensington Books, $15 ) 'a cr...